jso2897:snocone: Think of "Victory Garden".This is as "Green" and "Renewable" as it gets.Instead of mowing that lawn, put it to use.I wonder what the lubrication and fuel potential of marijuana is?Have you heard?

The lubrication and fuel potential of medicinal marijuana, grown for THC and cannabinol content, is virtually nil.

Henry Ford's first Model-T was built to run on hemp gasoline and the CAR ITSELF WAS CONSTRUCTED FROM HEMP! On his large estate, Ford was photographed among his hemp fields. The car, 'grown from the soil,' had hemp plastic panels whose impact strength was 10 times stronger than steel; Popular Mechanics, 1941.

Rudolf Diesel, the inventor of the diesel engine, designed it to run on vegetable and seed oils like hemp; he actually ran the thing on peanut oil for the 1900 World's Fair. Henry Ford used hemp to not only construct cars but also fuel them.

As an alternative to methanol, hemp has at least one glowing report: the plant produces up to four times more cellulose per acre than trees. And a hemp crop grows a little quicker than a forest.

As for an alternative to petroleum...

Hemp grows like mad from border to border in America; so shortages are unlikely. And, unlike petrol, unless we run out of soil, hemp is renewable.

Growing and harvesting the stuff has much less environmental impact than procuring oil.

Hemp fuel is biodegradable; so oil spills become fertilizer not eco-catastrophes.

Hemp fuel does not contribute to sulfur dioxide air poisoning.

Other noxious emissions like carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons are radically slashed by using "biodiesel.

Hemp fuel is nontoxic and only a mild skin irritant; anybody who,s ever cleaned out an old carburetor with gasoline can confirm the same is not true for petrol.

Growing hemp for fuel would be a tremendous boon for American farmers and the agricultural industry, as opposed to people like, say, the Bush family.

And that,s why hemp might not go anywhere as a fuel alternative. Oil interests are big and donate likewise to politicians, and selling a man on an idea that will cost him more than he,ll benefit requires an amazingly skilled orator -- or a gun. Unfortunately, unless you,re the federal government, gunpoint conversions are usually illegal. Ergo, PR is about the best bet right now.

What were they smoking? White Supremacist racism. The original campaign to delegalize marijuana had a lot to do with it being seen as a substance used by black folks and latinos, which was "corrupting" white folks. No surprise that it would continue to be founded on a pack of lies when it's always been bullshiat from the very start.

Smeggy Smurf:jso2897: Smeggy Smurf: Always keep in mind that as more and more states legalize wee, the pigs will have to find new and creative ways to bust you for something. They're not about to give up their dog murdering choking people to death women raping ways just because you said it's ok to own a plant.

There's always "resisting arrest".

Arrested for resisting arrest is my favorite. I especially like it when they kill somebody for it.

You have to roll over when you encounter the police. Otherwise, they will kill you.

Translation: It will be really hard to tax it when everybody has plants in their own home. And they'll stop using booze, so that tax revenue will go out the window. Plus that suit made out of monies that the alcohol industry lobbyists gave me really looks nice.

WeenerGord:Dinki: nmrsnr: Where is the pressure against legalizing marijuana? Is it really just "old people hate change?"

Conventional wisdom has been that the prohibitionists consisted of Police departments (and the town boards behind them) that rely on the income from drug busts, the DEA that needs to justify its existence, Big Pharma that fears the idea of people self medicating with it, Politicians that are afraid of looking soft on drugs, and People that simply believe the scare mongering,

The Man is worried that he'll have to release all the non-violent pot prisoners, causing a drop in private, for profit prison growth/revenue, and that the released prisoners will sue for wrongful imprisonment, and to try to get their seized houses/cars/boats/life savings back.

Nixon recriminalized cannabis and stepped up the drug war mostly to strike out at the Vietnam protestors. People are in jail today so he could get those hippies off his lawn.

Nah, that was part of his "tough of crime" schtick, and that was all about race.

Nobody wants to grow weed except for a few people, just like how nobody wants to brew beer or distill liquor except for a few people. Weed is a fairly shiatty social drug because most people will clam up or become a little more self conscious. Alcohol makes most people more talkative.

I prefer alcohol when I'm with friends. I prefer weed when I'm by myself listening to music. I prefer cocaine all of the time, but that shiat is expensive.

It's feared that children will begin using gay sex and drugs together in ritualistic practices. They may devise a way to fill drugs into their rectums and spark a whole new public danger similar to crack and AIDS mixed together. We don't know what could happen if children mix legal gayness with legal drugs.It's probably best to keep both things illegal

Jim_Callahan:Um... I don't know anyone that smokes marijuana at all in any real sense that doesn't smoke something on the order of this amount and frequency. Probably not every single day, but easily 5 or so in a sitting and 3 to 5 days a week, which is sort of that ballpark.

tillerman35:Translation: It will be really hard to tax it when everybody has plants in their own home. And they'll stop using booze, so that tax revenue will go out the window. Plus that suit made out of monies that the alcohol industry lobbyists gave me really looks nice.

Well, at least that's a RATIONAL line of argument. Even though they're overlooking that where it's legal cities and states are rolling in the tax dough. Their existing arguments are the purest form of bullshiat. I mean "Stuart Anderson-level Bullshiat".

jso2897:Smeggy Smurf: Always keep in mind that as more and more states legalize wee, the pigs will have to find new and creative ways to bust you for something. They're not about to give up their dog murdering choking people to death women raping ways just because you said it's ok to own a plant.

There's always "resisting arrest".

Public intox? Does that cover just alcohol? I know from personal experience they don't have to prove you're drunk.

phillydrifter:[lh5.googleusercontent.com image 320x240]/because the DEA's funding would bottom out if they could no longer target a weed//that's not me; no sir-ee///besides, it's just tobacco, proven lethal, legal

Heron:WeenerGord: Dinki: nmrsnr: Where is the pressure against legalizing marijuana? Is it really just "old people hate change?"

Conventional wisdom has been that the prohibitionists consisted of Police departments (and the town boards behind them) that rely on the income from drug busts, the DEA that needs to justify its existence, Big Pharma that fears the idea of people self medicating with it, Politicians that are afraid of looking soft on drugs, and People that simply believe the scare mongering,

The Man is worried that he'll have to release all the non-violent pot prisoners, causing a drop in private, for profit prison growth/revenue, and that the released prisoners will sue for wrongful imprisonment, and to try to get their seized houses/cars/boats/life savings back.

Nixon recriminalized cannabis and stepped up the drug war mostly to strike out at the Vietnam protestors. People are in jail today so he could get those hippies off his lawn.

Nah, that was part of his "tough of crime" schtick, and that was all about race.

We can pretend its the pharmas or the pigs or anything else, but it is ridiculously easy to get educated about pot, drugs, and prohibition.

The politicians have little to gain (though that is changing) but a lot to lose. Most anti drug folks stupidly think legalization is the end of the world. Most pro drug seem to rank it low as an issue. A runoff system would have solved this issue a decade ago.

Jim_Callahan:4.5 joints every single day over that period.This is far outside the realm of normal, moderate use.

Um... I don't know anyone that smokes marijuana at all in any real sense that doesn't smoke something on the order of this amount and frequency. Probably not every single day, but easily 5 or so in a sitting and 3 to 5 days a week, which is sort of that ballpark.

Headso:Jim_Callahan: Um... I don't know anyone that smokes marijuana at all in any real sense that doesn't smoke something on the order of this amount and frequency. Probably not every single day, but easily 5 or so in a sitting and 3 to 5 days a week, which is sort of that ballpark.

which is even worse because now you're drawing up contaminants from deeper in the soil and depositing them on top of the soil to flow back into lakes or inside animals that graze on those plants where it can reallyconcentrate.

The only fact that is germane: only an act of Congress can legalize weed. It is the only drug specifically spelled out in law as illegal. Schedule I was established for marijuana eradication. That the underlying premises were and are erroneous is besides the point.

You want marijuana legalized? Be a single issue voter and help elect congresscritters that will do it. Nothing else is possible.

And they knew it was BS when they passed it. The AMA testified against the ban in committee and were cut off because the committee said all they wanted was expert opinion in support of the ban.

Alcohol and cigarrettes are danagerous, contribute to violence and disease. Both are perfectly legal, and enthusiastically advertised.Pot is safe, healthy, and has medicinal purposes that no other drug can accomplish. It's never been shown to cause violence (quite the opposite). The plant is also useful as raw materials for fuels that could replace fossil fuels, clothes, and paper, among rather a lot else.

Stone Meadow:phillydrifter: [lh5.googleusercontent.com image 320x240]/because the DEA's funding would bottom out if they could no longer target a weed//that's not me; no sir-ee///besides, it's just tobacco, proven lethal, legal

Ding? Ding? I believe we have a winnah!

I don't think so. They'll come up with some other target that will require additional funding. I think the already see that MJ is slipping away from their control so now it's "abuse of prescription drugs" - which may or may not be real.

I think incarcerating people for activities they choose for themselves is the wrong approach.

WeenerGord:Maybe the reason that the gov's anti-argument is weak, is that they are already planning to roll over on this matter, and only putting up a token show of resistance for the fundies.

I don't think so. Obama came in with a "don't bother with marijuana arrests" advisement to Justice and they totally ignored it. We like to think of our government as being efficient, top down, and the President's desk as being where the buck stops, but the truth of the matter is that it's a messy maze of institutional interests, and unless you're willing and able to use your appointment-power to cut through that(as Bush was and Obama isn't[in large part due to R appointment stalling to be fair]), then those little bureaucratic "kingdoms" will pursue their own objectives regardless of what the Big Guy says.

So, while Obama, and maybe even the DNC leadership, may be friendly or at least neutral to the idea of legalization, they either don't care enough about the issue, or can't bring forward the necessary resources, to fight the prohibitionists on it seriously. Some might be willing to "roll over" on it, but there are enough people, well placed enough in the gov, who aren't to prevent federal legalization for a long while. That's why the state-by-state move is such a good idea(along with how it gives libertarian/NeoConfed Republicans a great big "States' Rights" boner). It cuts the bureaucracies with the biggest prohibitionist blocks -Justice, the DEA, the FBI, Customs, DHS- out of the decision-making process, and in a way that is unquestionably both democratic and legal(voter initiatives). At the same time, it begins to normalize marijuana access/use, turning the PR field against the prohibitionists, and setting us up for eventual decriminalization and outright legalization, hopefully sometime in the 2020s.

I think this will be the big central test of Obama's last two years: does he legalize it, or leave thousands of young black men to be persecuted? If he keeps quiet, his whole legacy is tainted by the failure.

Itstoearly:durbnpoisn: I just posted something about this in the last pot thread.

But I will say this much again.

Alcohol and cigarrettes are danagerous, contribute to violence and disease. Both are perfectly legal, and enthusiastically advertised.Pot is safe, healthy, and has medicinal purposes that no other drug can accomplish. It's never been shown to cause violence (quite the opposite). The plant is also useful as raw materials for fuels that could replace fossil fuels, clothes, and paper, among rather a lot else.

Shakin_Haitian:Well, yeah, plants absorb shiat from the soil. You still have to get rid of the plant once it's absorbed shiat or the plant dies, decomposes, and the shiat goes back into the soil.

I'm no horticulturist, but I believe part of the "phytoremediation" process is that some of the heavy metals and radiation are used up by the plant. So maybe there were 1000ppm of whatever in the soil and the plant eats .5% of it. Compost the plants, rinse repeat. After many generations, soil is clean. Even if you cannot remove the contaminants completely, removing them from the ground gets them out of the water supply as well.

AeAe:Stone Meadow: phillydrifter: [lh5.googleusercontent.com image 320x240]/because the DEA's funding would bottom out if they could no longer target a weed//that's not me; no sir-ee///besides, it's just tobacco, proven lethal, legal

Ding? Ding? I believe we have a winnah!

I don't think so. They'll come up with some other target that will require additional funding.

which is even worse because now you're drawing up contaminants from deeper in the soil and depositing them on top of the soil to flow back into lakes or inside animals that graze on those plants where it can reallyconcentrate.

I think you are missing the "step 2" here. Which involves harvesting and processing. Not growing and then allowing to compost and rot in the fields. Didn't think it needed to be spelled out like that but here we are...

Itstoearly:durbnpoisn: I just posted something about this in the last pot thread.

But I will say this much again.

Alcohol and cigarrettes are danagerous, contribute to violence and disease. Both are perfectly legal, and enthusiastically advertised.Pot is safe, healthy, and has medicinal purposes that no other drug can accomplish. It's never been shown to cause violence (quite the opposite). The plant is also useful as raw materials for fuels that could replace fossil fuels, clothes, and paper, among rather a lot else.

But pot is illegal.

The whole system is backward and farked up.

How do cigarettes contribute to violence?

You ever quit a tobacco product? Ho lee sheeee iiitt, it's horrible. I could see more impulsive people punch someone while nicking if that person was being annoying.

Funnily enough, nicotine by itself is easy to stop using. I can stop using my e-cig for days and weeks without feeling like I need it. Tobacco, no. I needed that more than I needed food.

LaGuardia Committee, 1946: `beat cops have more important things to do'Nixon's Shafer Commission, 1972: Federal decriminalization is the way to go

Same tired horses were dragged out on the track of fools, then.

Only gateway one can identify with relative certainty is mother's milk

It's so much stronger! Yeah, titrate the farking dose and one doesn't have to buy more as often

Schizophrenia! (yeah, about self medicating for any mental illness owing primarily to lack of services, huh?)

"Factor" in auto accidents (just try to run down stats on number of accidents that can be attributed to marijuana, alone - not also, tired, drunk, texting, etc.). The Warning Label on the Federally Approved, Schedule III, synthetic Delta 9 THC pill (Dronabinol/Marinol)? "Do not operate motor vehicles or heavy machinery until the patient knows what the effect of this medication has on them" (kinda like Benadryl). It is also interesting to note that the FDA has identified 4 deaths that can be directly attributed to this big pharma substitute (1986-2009).

if you have the time, google-up Irvin Rosenfeld. He has been receiving 9 Oz. of 3.5% Delta 9 from Uncle Sugar's pot farm at the U. of Mississippi, every month (300 machine rolled cigarettes) since 1982. He's still employed as a stockbroker & working on changing the law in Florida (has appeared before several State legislative committees over the years).Rosenfeld and his few Federal Compassionate Use Cohort petitioned the FDA to perform diagnostic testing on them to determine what the long term effect of their use was - the FDA refused (why would that be, huh?). They had their own testing done: Mild bronchitis & improved quality of life - that is all.

phillydrifter:AeAe: Stone Meadow: phillydrifter: [lh5.googleusercontent.com image 320x240]/because the DEA's funding would bottom out if they could no longer target a weed//that's not me; no sir-ee///besides, it's just tobacco, proven lethal, legal

Ding? Ding? I believe we have a winnah!

I don't think so. They'll come up with some other target that will require additional funding.

which is even worse because now you're drawing up contaminants from deeper in the soil and depositing them on top of the soil to flow back into lakes or inside animals that graze on those plants where it can reallyconcentrate.

I think you are missing the "step 2" here. Which involves harvesting and processing. Not growing and then allowing to compost and rot in the fields. Didn't think it needed to be spelled out like that but here we are...

It's still a bad idea because then you're sitting around allowing contaminants to penetrate to the groundwater and into the local fauna where it spreads. Harvesting the plants would be just as dangerous as digging up the soil and water, but digging can be done quickly, which is crucial to keep shiat from spreading.